


The Truth of Our Childhood

by snowflakesautumnleaves



Series: Reginald Hargreeves is an Even Bigger Asshole Than we Thought [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Five is protective, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus never told anyone, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 12:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18093929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowflakesautumnleaves/pseuds/snowflakesautumnleaves
Summary: After a training session with Vanya, the once again thirteen-year-old Hargreeves siblings talk about their abusive Father and Klaus tells them a secret he never meant to keep for so long.





	The Truth of Our Childhood

**Author's Note:**

> TW for child abuse!

The Hargreaves siblings were thirteen. For the second time, unfortunately.

They had stopped the apocalypse, or rather had been given a second chance to stop it. From the moment they were back in the child bodies, they started changing the past. They knew that in order to stop it they would need to do away with the events of the previous timeline. Vanya couldn’t be isolated this time around and they couldn’t let their father suppress her powers again. If this were to succeed, however, Reginald couldn’t know that they were from the future. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that if he found out he would lock Vanya up again and put her back on her meds.

That left them with the difficult question of how to train Vanya to properly use her powers without Reginald ever having knowledge of it. After many (occasionally violent) arguments of where to train, when to train, and how to train, they ultimately decided that the best course of action was to train Vanya in the attic, during the two hours their father was gone on Sundays.

That’s where the seven of them are now. They had trained for an hour and a half before deciding to call it a day. Vanya had been drastically improving since the day they started but it had been a more intense session that day and they were all worried that if they kept pushing her, Vanya could seriously lose control. So, after deciding to call it quits, the chose to stay together for the remaining half hour they had instead of retreating back to their rooms. They were sitting on the floor and chatting about a million things ranging from if Klaus was still sober (he was, reluctantly) to if Allison was going to be an actress again. The majority of it though, was about all the bullshit Reginald put them through in the first timeline.

“So basically dad was an abusive prick to all of us. Good to know.” Klaus stated after everyone had shared pieces of their individual training with Reginald. He was staring at the ceiling with his hands covering his ears in an attempt to block out the pleas of the ghosts in the room. He was also the only laying on the ground rather than sitting.

Everyone nodded and Diego said, “Yeah, you can say that again.” Reginald regularly locked one kid in an isolated, soundproof room, another in a mausoleum full of his greatest fear, and put the others in deadly and dangerous situations that often left them seriously injured, claiming he was “training them”.  The all agreed that what he did was abuse. Well, everyone except Luther, the only one of them that was manipulated enough to blindly follow their Father. Even after everything that happened with Vanya and the apocalypse, he still believed their Father was simply doing the only things he could and should be cut some slack. So, after hearing the word ‘abuse’, he looked at Klaus with his head tilted and brow furrowed. It was a face of confusion that also had some anger seeping through it.

“I know Dad’s done some bad things to all of us” Luther began apprehensively, crossing his arms. “But I don’t think we should go and call it abuse.”

“Why the hell not?” Diego’s head whipped to the side to face his brother. His hands were slowly curling into fits as his anger level rose. “Bastard nearly got us killed every other day. He put us through hell.”

“Yeah, but he had good intentions and it’s not like he ever hit us or anything.”

The other siblings had silently and unanimously decided to stay out of the brewing fist fight between their two brothers but after hearing that, Klaus couldn't help but start laughing. He sat up to face his siblings and ran his hands over his face and through his hair.

“What’s so funny?” Luther asked, clearly annoyed at Klaus being Klaus by laughing at an inappropriate time.

“Y-you” Klaus wheezed out between his laughter. “You have no idea, do you? None of you do!”

“What are you talking about, Klaus?” Five asked quickly, now intrigued by the conversation. As much as he hated to admit it, Luther was right. Dad had never laid a hand on any of them before. He always said it was a “useless parental technique that never works anyway”. So Klaus reaction was mildly concerning.

It took a minute for him to respond as he decided he needed to calm down his laughter before trying to form a coherent sentence. “Y’know, it always surprised me that you guys never figured it out,” Klaus said, looking around at all of his siblings' bewildered faces. “Especially you Five, you were supposed to be the smart one.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Although now that I think about it you weren’t really around much after it started. So you wouldn’t have seen very many of the bruises...”

“Klaus!” Ben shouted to try to get his out of his tangent and onto explain whatever he was talking about.

Before Klaus had a chance to continue Allison asked, “Are you saying Dad…used to hit you?” She sounded less confused and more concerned.

“Yeah,” Klaus replied. His voice was quiet but they could all hear the sadness that laced it.

“Oh, God…” Vanya’s hand shot up to cover her mouth in shock. The rest of them were silent, they just stared at the brother with wide eyes and half-open mouths as he stood up and walked across the room.

Five’s eyes, however, were not wide. They were narrow as he squinted at Klaus. Five, as much as was now extra pissed at their father, was intrigued. He knew their father and he knew he was easy to piss off but to get it to the level where Reginald had made it physical? What the hell had Klaus done?

Five decided to break the silence that had been looming over them for the last minute. “Do you care to elaborate?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not?” Klaus turned to face them. He had a faltering smile on his lips. “It started when I was twelve. The bastard broke my jaw.”

Allison and Vanya both gasped. Diego’s and Ben’s hands quickly formed into fists and Luther and Five just kept staring at Klaus. Luther was trying to process what, exactly, that meant while Five was growing more and more silently angry by the second. Klaus had said _the first time_. It had happened more than once and he never noticed.

All of them remembered the eight weeks Klaus spent with a broken jaw. It was funny to joke about after the fact because the boy who never shut up was finally silent for once in his life. However, when it happened it was anything but amusing. When they heard their Dad telling Mom that Klaus was in need of medical attention they all rushed to see what had happened. What they found was their (for all intents and purposes) little brother curled up at the bottom of the staircase sobbing with the occasional whimper as he clutched his face. He hadn’t calmed down until he was pumped full of so much morphine he was unconscious.

“Wait, I thought… Dad said you broke your Jaw falling down the stairs.” Allison said. Her eyes seemed to be teary at the memory of her brother and the realization of what must have happened.

“That, my dear sister, was a lie the old man told you to cover his ass,” he said with a half smile. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Well not completely. I did fall down the stairs wearing mom’s heels but I was completely fine.”

“W-why would he…” _hit you?_ Diego trailed off, unable to finish the question. He couldn’t with Klaus looking the way he did. His tiny shaking hands that gripped his hair made him look so small and vulnerable. It reminded Diego of the first time they were kids when Klaus would have nightmares and randomly wander into one of their rooms just wanting to not be alone.

Klaus looked Diego in the eyes, “Because he couldn’t tolerate my behavior.”

“He hit you for wearing Mom’s heels, one time?” Luther asked as he stood up, almost as if he didn’t believe him.

“No.” He was looking at Luther now. “He set up the cameras in the house earlier than we thought he did. He saw all of...all of the fashion shows we had. I’m sure you can guess how Dad me being in them.”

“Shit, Klaus.” Allison looked even worse now, knowing that she, though indirectly, had something to do with it.

“Don’t worry Ally, it wasn’t your fault.” Klaus forced a smile to reassure her. “And, for the record, I don’t blame you either Luther. Even though you were the one who told Dad I loved dressing in girls clothes.”

Only seconds passed before everyone had processed what Klaus had said. “You what!?” They all shouted at Luther at the same time.

“That was supposed to be a secret you asshole! We all knew he’d tear Klaus a new one if he found out!” Ben shouted now standing up.

“Dad ordered me to tell him! What was I supposed to do?”

“Lie!” Diego shouted, also getting off of the ground to make his way over to Luther. “Protect your brother!”

“Alright! Enough!” Five shouted over them, shutting them up. They didn’t need this to get violent. He turned to Klaus who now had tear tracks down his checks. “You said the stairs was when it all started. What happened after that?”

“O-oh yeah.” Klaus’ voice was shaky. “You see, I had gotten pretty good at resisting Dad trying to throw me into the Mausoleum after the like, fourth time? He’d have to immobilize me to get on with my “training”.” Everyone was staring at him, scared of what he was going to say next. “A kick here, a punch there. Just, whatever worked at the time. I don’t know it’s all kinda blurred together…” By the time he started trailing off in the sentence, Klaus’ whole body was shaking and his eyes were wide with fear.

“Klaus…” Vanya began but was cut off by Five who had one last question to ask.

“Do you want a hug?”

Klaus looked at him, surprised before he cracked a small smile and nodded.

When they all walked over to their brother to engulf him in the biggest hug they could imagine, they hadn’t expected an extremely pissed off Reginald Hargreeves, who had been looking for his children who had failed to show up to their lessons on time, to find the six of them (even Luther who felt a bit bad for what he did) huddled around Klaus in a group hug.

So, when he cleared his throat in an attempt to get their attention, they all quickly turned to face him, terrified at first. Almost immediately though, that terror morphed into anger and they all glared at their Father while thinking the same thing: Reginald Hargreeves was going to pay.

   


End file.
